one last time
by IWantYouInMyLife
Summary: Tony is gone, and Peter feels like he will never breathe again.


Peter doesn't remember how he got there. It all feels like some strange dream where he has no control over his body and everything is happening around him without his input or permission. He's just walking, and blinking, and swallowing, and breathing, and waiting for the pressure in his middle to either disappear or cave a big enough hole in his chest that he'll be able to fold inwards and vanish into thin air.

That's not what happens, though.

Someone — Pepper? May? Happy? — is leading him inside a living room, guiding him towards the large, black couch, sitting down next to him, speaking something… giving a command?

And suddenly, as if conjured from Peter's personal subconscious, appears Tony. _God_, Tony. Tony Stark, right in front of him, looking so alive and healthy and calm and grounded and gosh, _what the hell?_

It's a hologram — Peter is distantly aware of it despite his strong determination to pretend otherwise — and still. Still, the air gets stuck in his throat and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth and the space gets a hundred degrees hotter and seven-foot smaller in an instant.

There's only room for Tony and the chair he's sitting on and the pensive look on his face and the way he looks so, so alive.

Time comes to a halt in deference to the greatness of his mentor's presence — as it should. _As it should_.

The whole universe stops, and there's nothing more important than the words crossing his lips, coming out of his mouth, echoing around the room, low and steady.

"Hey, Parker," Tony greets with a small wave of the hand, looking straight at Peter, as though he can actually see him, meet his eyes. He's relaxed in his chair, a small curve to his lips. "Long time no see, buddy."

Peter blinks, and blinks again, trying to clear his view, to chase away the tears, to swallow past the huge lump lodged in his windpipe, wondering if he should respond. If he can.

But Tony doesn't wait for him.

"How are you, kid?" He asks, quirking an eyebrow. "I hope you're alright." He pauses, crooks his head. "Actually, scratch that, you better be alright. More than alright — you better be amazing. In one piece. _Safe_."

In one piece? How? How can that be possible when Peter is pretty sure that his entire body shattered some time between a snap of fingers and the goddamn funeral and all that's left is a few crooked shards of his past self, floating around.

Being safe doesn't exist when Tony is _just not there_.

Only Tony doesn't realize that, and he's shaking his head, almost looking amused at himself. "What I am saying? Of course you are," he corrects, inhaling slowly. "If you're watching this message, then I'm sure you're just fine. I'll make sure of that, buddy."

A lie.

All lies.

"I'm hoping if you play this back... it's in celebration," he continues, ignoring Peter unsaid insults. "I hope families are reunited. I hope we get it back, in somewhat like a normal version of the planet has been restored, if there ever was such a thing."

_Would there ever be anything normal ever again for them?_

"This time travel thing…" Tony exhales sharply, looking too much as if he's gathering courage to keep going, to say the words. "For Christ's sake. Peter, _look_. Are you paying attention?"

Was Tony kidding? Peter's brain could be wiped away tomorrow and he would still remember Tony's words until his last breath — that's how deep they are sinking into his veins, his muscle, his bones, _his very soul_.

"Peter, I want you to know that I did all this for you. Only you, and nobody else," Tony says forcefully, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and intertwine his fingers. "Yeah, that makes me a selfish asshole, I know, but honestly, who cares at this point? I tried — to be better, to forgive and forget, to live another life. How fucked-up is it that the whole time I was thinking of you?"

Distantly, Peter hears some noises — a cry, someone sobbing, whispered words, a groan of pain, a choked scream. Distantly, Peter feels a hand on his shoulder, trying to offer him a bit of comfort. Distantly, Peter realises he has stopped breathing altogether.

It's all distant.

In focus, there's only one person.

"Because I was," Tony rasps, then stops, then tilts his head back a little to mention to the stairs in the back with his chin. "Go on, after this. Go upstairs; see the rest of the house. See how there's a Peter Parker hole all over it." He gives a small, wryly laugh. "There's a room for you, even. A whole damn room I built for you — with stupid Star Wars posters on the wall and special lighting installed and soundproof padding. The whole nine yards… all there."

A room? For him?

"I don't even know why. It's not like you would've lived here if you hadn't been—if I hadn't—if, well, you know," he says, like it's obvious, but it is not. Of course Peter would have. Would've grabbed his stuff and moved in at the first hint that he would've been welcomed here.

_How could Tony not know?_

"If you're watching this, then it means I'm gone. Dead. Hopefully doing something that changed the tides in our favor," Tony says, as though it doesn't tear open a part of Peter to hear the man say the words out loud. "I want to believe that this entire recording will be useless — that I'll just throw it away later on, embarrassed to have recorded it in the first place. But mostly, I just want to be ready." He stops, frowns. "In case I'm not around to say this to you personally, Peter, I need to know that you'll hear it, no matter what. So do this old man a favor and listen closely, yeah?"

At that point, Peter can do little else.

"Peter, I'm old — old and tired," Tony says, sagging in his chair. Defeated. "I'm past fifty at this point, and there's so damn little in my life that I look back with pride. For the most part, I fucked things over and tried my best to assemble the pieces back together, but you know what? If nothing else — even before I got my head out of my ass and married the woman of my life and had Morgan — I have you."

"Maybe I did it in the worst way possible, maybe I just made it all worse, maybe I put you in danger more than I helped you, but I _tried_. Peter, I tried with you more than I ever tried with anyone else in my goddamn life, and _thank god_. Thank god, because you deserve it — every moment, and every piece of tech, and every early morning practice, and the whole shebang, 'cause kid, you're the best thing that's ever happened to this cursed planet."

Peter wants to close his eyes, to pretend none of this is really happening, to lie to his own mind, even if only for the briefest of moments, and perhaps it would've been a relief — or the closest to it he could've managed in the situation — but his persistent eyes remain wide open, taking in everything happening at once.

"And I'm sorry — sorry that I couldn't save you." Tony dares to apologize, his face twisted in a mask of pain and pain and pain. "If someone has ever wished for me to be punished for all the shitty things I've done, then they did good, kid, so fucking good, because there was not a day that I didn't—"

Tony halts, pauses, swallows loudly, and then just closes his eyes. "It doesn't matter," he raps, defeated. "What matters is that I'm doing this. Tomorrow. I'm trying my best to fix this so that you can live the life you deserve to live, kiddo. 'Cause you do — more than anyone else. And I'm gonna do this — if it's the last thing I ever do."

Peter's eyes burn in a way they have never before, and he grinds his teeth and bites the inside on his cheeks as he does it, hoping to feel the pain, to taste the blood, to draw his brain's attention to something that isn't the gaping void spreading across his body.

"I updated my will last night. Again. It's all yours — the tech, the labs, the projects, the suits, the company. Peter — whenever you want it, however you'd like it, alright? Take your time, kid. It will wait for you."

Iron Man. Mister Stark. Sir. Tony Stark. _Tony_.

Peter used so many names for him. Spoken them without treasuring each and every one as he should've, time and time again, and yet, still, he has _one_ more name for the man burning inside his mouth, sitting at the tip of his tongue.

A last one.

Forever unsaid.

"For my last act, I'd like to give you some unsolicited advice, hun?" Tony jokes, a line appearing between his brows. "How 'bout that? That's the best kind of advice there is, ain't it?"

As if Tony had ever given anything to Peter that was unsolicited. Unwanted. As is he's not greedy enough to seize it all with both hands and doesn't cling to it like a lifeline guiding him to the light.

"Don't give up," Tony says, pleads, still speaking, looking straight through Peter and cutting him open with just his stare, leaving him raw and exposed, fragile in a way that he had never been even as he died on Titan. "I know you will feel like it — that's who you are. You'll blame yourself for a whole bunch of shit that was never your fault in the first place, and you'll start to sag under the pressure of being enough. But, kid, _you already are_. So don't, okay?"

And it's too much. It already is too much. Sweat pricks at the back of his neck, and his stomach lurches, and Peter wonders if he's close to fainting.

Tony can't be gone. Can't be dead — not when Peter never got the chance to do half the stuff he thought of when he first met Tony.

_Not when their first proper hug was also their last._

"I get that you feel lost. That you don't understand shit. Trust me, Underoos, we are all just as lost as you — we just do a better job at hiding in. You will feel lost and hopeless and untethered -—as if you have no footing whatsoever," Tony says so softly, so slowly, so carefully. "But you've got your whole life. _Seriously, what's the rush?_"

_Your whole life. Your whole life - which I'll never be a part of_, Peter completes in his mind.

God, how can it hurt so badly?

"Part of the journey is the end." Tony shakes his head lightly, rubbing his face with one hand. "What am I tripping for? Everything is going to work out exactly the way it's supposed to."

Tony gets up and crouches in front of him, and like this, they are eye-to-eye, at the same height, so close together, almost, almost touching, and Peter can barely see from behind the river of acrid tears running down his face, but he soaks it in. Soaks it all in — starving for any piece of Tony he can get.

Even if it is this.

Even if there's no scent and no body and no pulse and no life.

Even if it's the end.

"Peter, I love you," Tony proclaims, serious as he's ever been. He breathes deeply. "I hope you knew that — even before."

Peter swallows. "I did," he whispers brokenly into the empty space. "I did, Tony."

And the hologram fades away, disappearing into nothing in a blink of the eyes, leaving Peter alone in the room once more, staring at the vacant space where Tony had been. There's nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It's only Peter, and the hurricane of feelings swirling inside his chest, and the loud sobs coming from him, and the tears, the many, many tears, and the bible of unsaid words Peter still has trapped in the back of his mouth.

In the end, as the dust finally settles and the universe slides back into place, everything is just where it should be — in perfect harmony.

With one single exception.

One person.

And Peter is selfish enough to allow the blackness to drown him in despair when he realises that that is all that matters to him.

Tony is gone, and Peter feels like he will never breathe again.


End file.
